#lmao i was like 'lock your shading layer duplicates' and some of mine are unlocked in the screenshot. don't live like me. play soccer

[synthaphone]

If it's not too much to ask, how do you shade complex patterns easier?

Its not too much to ask at all!!

My easy trick for shading complex patterns in cel shaded Neopets style art, where you'd want to hand pick your shadow colors for each element:

First, I make a flat base layer, and put each unique color on its own layer that i clip to the base.

After i finish the flats, i then duplicate ALL of those layers, lock them, and recolor each duplicate with the color i want to use for that element's shadow. these are now effectively my Shadow layer, and i rename the base duplicated layer so i know its my shadow base.

and then i use a layer mask on either the base layer or a folder i put the shadow layers in- i use this to paint in the spots where i want the unshaded areas to be.

This method makes it really easy to change my mind on a shading color for a specific area without having to carefully repaint the shadows, or tweak where i want the shadows to fall without having to worry about matching the colors, similarly to having the shadows painted on a multiply layer.

if i'm using a PSD where I already made a shadow layer, like my basic Centibyte base, i just duplicate all of the clipped areas from the flat color base, clip the dupes onto that shadow layer, recolor it to be the shadow color for the base color, and proceed from there.

You can do this trick for highlights also- I've noticed that highlights are typically used sparingly in Neopets art though, so I kind of just go with whatever i think looks right.

For Tyrannian, I decided it looks fine with solid white highlights at a lowered opacity of 70%, so i didn't bother coming up with a unique highlight color for each area. Sometimes I'll make the highlight layer an Overlay layer since that can help the highlights with not looking washed out, but it feels a little inauthentic and loses contrast over certain colors, and in this instance Normal ended up looking better.

I hope this was helpful and not too unclear! I'm not super experienced with making tutorials, but I'm always happy to share what works for me as best I can!